Bitcoin Bandits

by Chris Kale

  “You are,” Wyatt said flatly. “An international investigation of this size makes it a matter of foreign concern. Even if we don’t have jurisdiction, it’s a lot of fucking money missing. The U.S. is gonna get involved whether they like it or not. We’re just going to have to let them get the credit when we solve it.”

  “Just like usual,” Thomas said, “nothing is new there I see.”

  “Nope,” Wyatt said. “Politics and speed of a snail’s crawl policy stuff.”

  “If that’s the case I’ll be heading back over there today. I’ve got some more questions for Li. He must have known that Joon sent the funds.”

  “So, Joon stole the Bitcoin?” Wyatt asked.

  “Looks that way but left a back door so that if anything happened to him it may not all be lost forever.”

  “Well,” Wyatt said, with an audible sip on the other end of the call, “keep me informed and let me know if you need anything.”

  “Bye, Wyatt,” he said, and they both hung up.

  Thomas reached for his other cell phone and typed a message to the hacker vigilante: When are you coming?

  Thomas brushed both hands through his hair, staring at the message he’d typed. No response came as his leg bounced up and down, jolting with enthusiasm. This was what he needed. With every ounce of energy in his being, he knew this would be a game changer. He was all alone in the dark in Seoul while other forces worked behind the veil that was being pulled up in front of him. Li wasn’t going to be as helpful as he needed, as Thomas thought he was still holding in some secrets. That was his experience at least with other CEOS and the heads of the banks.

  There’s almost no one in those positions of power that are picture perfect on paper. They always dipped their hands in the cookie jar even when mom told them not to.

  CryptoCunt is going to be my ace in the hole. I can feel it.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The Boeing 747 was pulled to the terminal at Incheon International Airport on a warm, overcast morning. At 8:08 a.m. a tall woman walked out of the tunnel and into the terminal as smiling attendants stood before vast crowds of people. The woman wore a black and white Black Flag T-shirt, with two white hands holding a large pair of garden sheers, open and ready to cut. Freyja had on round sunglasses, and blond hair, now dyed a dull-black was tied up at the back of her head.

  She glared down at her cell phone and chewed on a piece of hard gum that had lost its flavor long ago, she only wore a light, dark-blue jacket and had a black, laptop backpack hitched on both arms.

  Freyja wasn’t really looking at anything on her cell, because behind those dark lenses she was scanning the crowds. She traveled from time to time, but she wished to remain an anonymous tourist in these lands. Looking at the hundreds of people before her, she didn’t exactly know what she was looking for, something out of the ordinary she supposed.

  A Korean businessman stared at her. Her paranoia could have shot off like a cannon, but she took a deep breath and brushed it off as some sexual deviant imagining doing unspeakable acts to her. He probably was just a normal guy who found women attractive.

  In the airport with the hundreds of people with non-Asian complexions Freyja felt safe. She didn’t stand out too much. She hoped she looked like some sort of semi-lost young woman who’d flunked out of college and decided she needed to find herself out in the world. It couldn’t be further from the truth though behind those green eyes. She was motivated, intelligent and on a mission. The only way to find those missing Bitcoins was in Korea. She knew it, but she may need Thomas’ help, which she didn’t care for. She didn’t like asking for help from anyone, but like she told him the night before, she’d decided that he had just as little faith in the system as she did. He wouldn’t rat her out or betray her, but who was she kidding—she didn’t know him. She’d only read about him.

  Feeling somewhat safe, her gaze left the passersby of obvious tourists in flip flops and business people with near-perfectly groomed hair, and she looked to her phone. She messaged Thomas: I’m here. We should meet.

  His response came in seconds: I’m guessing you just got in. Hold on let me think.

  A minute later another message came through. Peace Square at the Olympic Park?

  Freyja thought about that, never having been to Korea, she searched it quickly on her phone as she walked down the airport lines.

  It’s a little touristy, she sent.

  We will blend in, he texted back.

  Fine, she texted. I’ll be getting in a car now. I’ll reach out when I’m close.

  He messaged with an: OK.

  Freyja finally turned her phone off and let it rest in her right hand at her side. Looking back over her shoulder, it was impossible to really tell if anyone was intentionally following her. But she was good. She knew she was good at remaining invisible and would have left no trail for anyone to track her communications. But Thomas—that was her one weak link. She didn’t know if she could trust him, and if he let it slip that she was coming to visit him, then. . . well. . . she’d disappear. . . slide back into the shadow.

  Not finding anyone who looked suspicious enough to be tracking her, (she did have light military experience, as her mother was an officer in the Norwegian forces before she died,) Freyja made her way out of the airport and waved to one of the many taxi drivers. She was quickly in the car and heading off to the park. The driver spoke very little English, and she was honestly happy about that.

  Rolling down the window she felt the warmth wash into her stale hair from the long flight. The glow of the sun brought her pale skin to life, and she felt the golden rays enriching her soul. Taking off her sunglasses, she closed her eyes and imagined she was on a Hawaiian beach, far, far away from any computer screens. She took one long breath and opened her eyes. The road to Seoul was a busy highway with grassy fields on either side. Freyja put her shades back on and rolled the window up.

  “Music?” the driver asked in a thick accent, and without a smile. She nodded. He turned on the radio and Mariah Carey came on.

  “Sorry, changed my mind. No music please,” she said in a soft voice, but loud enough for him to hear over the music. He turned off the radio and let out a soft sigh.

  Around thirty-five minutes later, the driver told her they were close. She pulled out her phone and let Thomas know.

  Again, she wished she wasn’t doing this. She preferred the safety of her computer back home in Oslo. But the code Bob June had left in his movement of the Bitcoin to particular addresses made sense—or rather—almost completely made sense. There was one thing she couldn’t figure out. One of the words that he’d hidden was a jumble of numbers, and she’d read that Thomas was extremely competent at numbers and following the money.

  Either way—whether she wanted to be here or not—she was about to become ‘outed’ for the first time in her life from the secret life she’d lived from behind her keyboard. Thomas would know who she really was, and that feeling reflected in her stomach in the form of nausea.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The car pulled up to the park, making its way down the winding road that led to the great structure at the center of Peace Square. It was a towering monument that stood around six stories tall, with two walls widely spaced apart with two great, curving ‘wings’ at its top. On the underside of each of the wings was a mural, not quite ‘dated,’ but beautiful in its own respect. The one Freyja saw was a painting of rich reds, blues, and pinks that brought the old world of Korean painting to a new century. A majestic bird flew across the mural that most resembled a phoenix to her; powerful and infinite in its flight.

  She paid the driver as he pulled over at the entrance to the park, and she left the safety of the anonymous taxi and strolled out onto the long, paved path that led to the Peace Gate structure. That familiar uneasiness shot up through her stomach once again, and she ran to the metal trash can at her right, she didn’t quite make it though. Hurling up a nervous stomach onto the sidewalk, she looked around fran
tically with many glaring eyes upon her, and wanted nothing more than to run far, far away.

  Freyja looked back to the main road where her taxi was screaming off, and then she looked back to the gate with the strong bird underneath its wings. She spat on the sidewalk, squared her shoulders, took a deep breath.

  “You can do this,” she whispered to herself.

  Thomas stared out at the many people who’d been walking through the park, and he wasn’t exactly sure what he’d be looking for. If anything, he hoped she’d find him. After all the research she did on him, she probably stumbled across a picture of him at some point. He checked his phone; no new messages.

  He was sitting directly under the wings of the gate, and at that moment he felt like one of those real detectives in a movie. One of those Harrison Ford’s or Tom Cruise’s who was meeting the one who’d give them the information needed to go find the bad guy. He laughed to himself—that’s actually what he was waiting for.

  In the sea of tourists, he gazed out, watching and waiting. Then a person caught his eye. A tall woman hurried down the sidewalk to his left. She wore a black T-shirt with torn, fitted jeans, and her died black hair flowed behind her as she walked faster than the other sightseers. He stood.

  Anxiously awaiting her to approach, Thomas’ hands hung loosely at his sides as he watched her walk up to him. Then, she was standing no more than four feet away, her eyes veiled behind round, dark sunglasses. She seemed to be awaiting him to speak first.

  “Is it you?” he asked.

  She nodded. “Let’s walk,” she said in a quick voice, and she was already in motion. He quickly joined her in step.

  “I’m glad you came,” Thomas said, looking at the young woman who stood his height, with the thick soles on her shoes. “Is there something else I can call you? Other than. . .”

  “Freyja,” she said. “I’m taking a lot of risks trusting you. I hope you’ve been discreet about this so far.”

  Thomas thought about his conversation with Wyatt. But he trusted him. He was a good friend. “You’re safe,” he said. “Nice to finally meet you, Freyja. You know my name already. So. . . what was the catalyst for you taking a last-minute flight to Korea?”

  “I found the seed phrase in Joon’s message,” she said. “But not all of it.”

  “That’s great news,” he said. “A seed phrase is the string of words needed to recover a wallet, correct?”

  She looked up at him, with an impressed, high-pitched humph. “Yes.”

  “How did you find the phrase?” he asked.

  “It was pretty genius, actually,” she said, brushing her hair from her forehead in the gentle summer breeze. “Joon was a fan of the number three, like we talked about. And with the Bitcoin being scattered to all those addresses, I started to look at the third digit in each numerical address and started looking to the comparable letter of the alphabet.”

  “Ninety-three different addresses,” Thomas said, slowing in his step. “The entirety of the twelve-word seed phrase is ninety-three letters long? But how would that account for letters that are higher than nine? How would he account for a Z in the phrase?” Then a thought occurred to him. “No, wait. Let me guess. . . there was a zero in the third position that signified a double-digit letter?”

  She looked over at him, smiling slightly, and lifting her finger to her nose, she tapped it twice.

  “So?” he asked, urging her to continue.

  “The last word follows a single address that seems to be gibberish. There’s no word in English that makes sense for it. And what’s even more puzzling is the final word in the seed phrase, which seems oddly out of place, especially after the nonsense address. And I’ve tried recovering the funds with the seed phrase including the final word, it doesn’t work.”

  “What’s the last word?” he asked.

  “The seed phrase includes words like Love, Thought, and Pain. But the last word doesn’t flow with the other words which are all emotions, or intangible things. The final word in the seed is USB.”

  Thomas stopped in his tracks. “USB? Is that where the last word would be maybe? On a USB drive?”

  “Maybe,” she said. “I think it’ll be a bit more complicated than that somehow.” Her voice was showing an inkling of frustration now. “But I don’t know how.”

  “But it was enough to send you flying to Korea.” Thomas laughed.

  “What’s funny?” she asked.

  “I thought this was going to be an investigation that was going to be solved online,” he said. “Following the money and all, but now we have to find a tangible USB drive to recover billions. It even drove CryptoCunt out of the shadows.” He laughed again.

  “It took a lot for me to come here,” she said, not laughing back.

  “OK,” he said, “next puzzle—why did Joon steal the Bitcoin? He was already well-off, well-respected in his community, and not to mention, the prime suspect—being the lead programmer for BitX. . .”

  “The seed phrase is one that Joon created the day before he died,” she said. “I think he was the one who stole the Bitcoin, but I also think he was hiding it from someone. That’s why he was killed.”

  “What sense does it make to kill the only man who could recover the funds?” he asked.

  “It doesn’t make any sense,” she said.

  “Poor kid was tortured,” he said. “Maybe he spoke, told them the phrase, and they killed him anyway.”

  “Did the police find any USB flash drives or USB wallets at the place he lived?” she asked.

  “I don’t believe so.” Thomas scratched his head. “But I’ll double check. That might be a dead end. Perhaps at BitX, we could look in his desk. But here’s another question, you said it would be more complicated than simply finding a USB drive that would have the final seed word on it. . . What are the odds we’re going to find this drive and simply pop it in a computer and the word is just going to pop up? He probably owns dozens of drives, hundreds even. I think we need to look more into that one wallet address that doesn’t make sense.”

  “That’s why I need your help. Here.” Freyja reached in her pocket, pulled a tiny piece of paper from it, and handed it to him. It was a crinkled strip of paper no wider than three inches long and one inch tall.

  Thomas knew this long string of digits was no secret, as anyone who knew how blockchain worked could find where the stolen Bitcoins were sitting. He didn’t know how far the programmers at BitX or the detectives working the case were getting, but this one address seemingly held the key to recovering the billions. He looked down at the long string of digits—3756713612698364508294611092232764.

  “So, by the code, this would signify an ‘E’ by the 5,” he said. “Yeah, that doesn’t make sense, E-U-S-B. . . Is that a thing? An E-USB?”

  She shook her head.

  “Hmm,” he said, letting the numbers roll through his head. “There’s something there. I can feel it; I just don’t know what yet.”

  “We don’t have a lot of time,” she said. “Who knows how many people are searching for the code.”

  “We aren’t too late, are we?” he asked.

  She pulled her cell out and with two clicks, she locked it again. “No, the Bitcoin is still there.”

  “I’m going to have to call this in,” he said.

  Freyja grabbed his arm. “You can’t.” She pulled her sunglasses to the top of her head with her other hand. Her eyes were a deep, mossy green that showed a subtle worry.

  “Why not?” he asked, looking down at her slender fingers wrapped around his wrist. “It's my job. That’s why I’m here. They can help.”

  “You maybe trust some of your co-workers, but what about their bosses?” she asked. “Who do they report to? This isn’t fucking U.S. dollars that can just be created out of fucking thin air. This is gold. How much gold has your government stolen in its lifetime? So they get the Bitcoin, what do you think are the odds they’d give all that gold back to a decentralized exchange that they have abso
lutely no fucking control over? What are the odds they’re going to keep it ‘safe’? 50/50? 80/20?”

  Thomas’ head sank as she released his wrist.

  A warm wind blew through then that rustled his hair at his brow in the sunlight, which was only partially fogged by thin clouds wafting past.

  “Well, what would you suggest then?” he asked.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Two hours later, at the base of the tower that harnessed the BitX CEO, protesters continued their constant chants—their voices carrying out into the space trapped between the buildings in downtown Seoul, only this time with a much more present police force. After the gunshots, this congregation seemed much more like an angry, vocal assault upon the ones who’d lost their money.

  The sounds of squeaking, honking horns showed their disdain for not being able to pass through the road the hundred-or-so people were blocking. There was yellow police tape strung from white-striped saw-horses that flapped in the breeze. People yelled this time. The gunshots didn’t deter them, no, it made them more pissed off, and it showed in their determination. Cops cupped the holsters of their pistols as they watched the angry looks in the eyes of the real victims of this theft.

  Walking past them into the building was the man with bared, muscular shoulders with black tattoos running down both arms. His blue eyes peering past the screaming people with the not-too-clever signs. Niklas entered into the front doors of the building with ease, not even making eye contact with the woman at reception, who shied her eyes away from his anyway.

  Niklas made his way up the elevator, winding around the corner, making only brisk glances at the others in the office, still glaring at their computer screens.

  “Mr. Wei is busy,” the woman in the front of his office said to Niklas as he stared straight at Li through the clear glass. “He’ll be with you in moments, Mr. Wolf, if you’ll only just wait a minute—”